Addis Ababa (AFP) – Above Addis Ababa’s concrete skyline, cranes tower high amid blasts from nearby drills and diggers. At the feet of buildings shrouded in bamboo scaffolding, excavators dig up dirt tracks, to be replaced by paved roads and a modern railway.
It is a scene common to most neighbourhoods in the Ethiopian capital, which has turned into a giant building zone and a city in transformation.
“It looks like a construction site when we compare from the previous time,” said Berhanu Kassa, manager of B.B. Construction in the Ethiopian capital.
“Especially in the past five years, it’s a really big change,” he added, speaking at the site of his latest project, a mixed-use commercial building on one of the city’s main thoroughfares where workers offload concrete slabs from a delivery truck.
Addis Ababa’s construction boom — funded both from private and public coffers — is being driven by the country’s recent rapid economic growth.
But the government hopes it will attract further investment and help industrialise the economy in order to reach middle income status by 2025.
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